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The Paris Review Daily ·For the curious

A City Bigger Than a Bomb: Dispatch From Beirut

by Jacob Russell

Published 2026-07-15 15:14:22+00:00

Can a family still find room to live in the quiet gaps between the bombs?

0:00 / 13:09 · Narrator Charon

Context

Jacob Russell writes from Beirut on 15 July 2026, where the rhythms of parenting a toddler must somehow coexist with the sudden, violent logic of air strikes. The focus stays on the space between disasters—the quiet hours of breakfast and diaper changes that make up a life even when the horizon is burning. The dispatch captures the way a city can feel impossibly small under a drone’s gaze while remaining, stubbornly, bigger than any single bomb.

Show notes

A first-person account of raising a young son in Beirut during the recent escalation of war in Lebanon. Recounts the author’s wedding day and the daily routines of parenting under the threat of air strikes and drone surveillance. Details a city where safety is measured by the distance between neighborhoods and the timing of military strikes.

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